This
Month's Mind Flexors
Mind Flexors are
concise exercises to practice the six characteristics
listed below. If you put on ice skates and skate a little bit each day
for the next year, you will definitely be better on ice at year's end.
Research and common sense tells us that regular flexing of your creativity
capacity will make it easier for you to be creative on
demand.
Mind Flexors are
designed to be fun and to exercise your mind. You don't have to do all of
them to increase your creativity, but practice never hurts! Some people
who have attended TMI's Unbind Your Mind creativity class share ideas
across e-mail or do the exercises with colleagues or
family.
There are no correct
answers to the Mind Flexors. Give yourself permission to think of as
unusual answers as possible.
- Think of the
yellow pages concept. Imagine how this concept could be applied to as
many things as you can see in your immediate environment. Now choose
your best answer.
- Write a song that
honors your birthday. Not birthdays in general, but your specific
birthday, such as April 25. Then sing your song to
someone.
- Write as many
words as you can think of that begin with the letter “w”. Give yourself
90 seconds to complete the task.
- We use pull knobs
for drawer handles. What other, perhaps more unusual, more artistic,
objects could be placed on drawers and used for
handles?
- Look for any two
isolated events today and create a link between them. You can be totally
fanciful in creating your link.
- You have suddenly
encountered a great expanse of deep powdery snow. Look about the place
where you are currently seated and find three objects that you could use
to attach to your feet to create some kind of snow shoe. How would you
attach these objects using materials that are in your immediate
vicinity?
- A new country
western song has just made the all time hit parade. It is called,
“Wandering Down the Side of My Tongue.” What are the three main messages
of the song that make it so very very popular?
You are free to use these Mind
Flexors for your personal use. With any publication or duplication in a
document, electronic or otherwise, full credit must be given to Janelle
Barlow, TMI, and permission must be obtained.
Unbind Your Mind - Six Characteristics
People who rank high in the following six characteristics tend to be
more creative:
 Fluency of
ideas: The more creative you are, the more ideas you can produce in a
given time. If your brain can rapidly produce 30 ideas, it does not matter
if most of them are of little value. You say that one good idea is
better than 30 bad or mediocre ideas, but it can take 30 ideas to produce
one good idea. Most people do not produce their best ideas until their
brain has sorted through some average ideas. It is almost as if the brain
needs to get warmed up in the same way athletes put their bodies through
warm-up periods before competition or training.
Withholding of judgment: If you delay your judgments, you will get more
high quality ideas when you are brainstorming. When you judge, you are
looking for what does not work or fit, rather than possibilities. It is
within possibilities that creativity sits.
Tolerance
of ambiguity: Tolerance of ambiguity is the ability to live in a universe
where there are no right or wrong answers, where ideas or thoughts are
vague and yet unformed. There are two sides to this ability: willingness
to see both sides of the same coin, and willingness to stay in the
questioning phase before rushing to an answer.
Flexibility and imagination: Creativity demands flexible thinking, almost
a childlike attitude of wonderment. To be creative, you must operate as if
the world can be as you create it.
Concentration: This is the ability to stay focused on a subject, even
while you feel frustrated or bored. It is the ability to ignore
distractions while trying to solve problems or accomplish something.
Concentration and determination are critical aspects of
creativity.
Preference
for disorder: Creative people tend to like disorder. This does not
necessarily mean mess. One of the stereotypes of creative people is that
of the messy inventor or writer with piles of paper everywhere. Mess has
little to do with creativity. Disorder is something else. Preference for
disorder refers to asymmetry in design, nonlinear thinking, or shaking up
the normal order.
Previous "Mind Flexor"
selections:
#1
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#7
#8
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#10
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#12
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#14
#15
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#20
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#22
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#24
#25
#26
#27
#28
#29
#30
#31
#32
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#38
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#44
#45
| TMI, USA has a complete book
of 365 Mind Flexors exercises available. It is authored by Janelle
Barlow, Ph.D. and is titled, Mind Flexors. We will
also publish here new (never before seen!) Mind Flexors--seven at a
time each month. We invite our readers to add their own creativity
to this list, and we'll credit you with your contribution. We'll
also list your creative answers on this page if you send them to
us. |
Creativity Training
Program
Unbind Your Mind & Mind
Flexors Publications | 
